You’re a Mess (But We Like Ya Anyway)

(No, this is NOT two gay guys sneaking into the Kama Sutra. It's a picture of the first two cervical vertebrae, our friends C-1 and C-2, called Atlas and Axis by the folks who know 'em, the atlas because he shoulders the world, get it? The atlas bears the weight of that big old HEAD we all have wobbling atop the broomstick. Anatomy baby! There's nothing cooler!)

Three days ago the doctor explained my recent MRI to me. “The joint degeneration in your neck is much worse!" he said with a great big smile and sent me to have an X-Ray, where one of the jauntiest guys in the business was doing the honors. I explained to him what the deal was: “Next week this doctor's going to inject stuff in there, then make me have these huge boring amounts of physical therapy. First, though, he wants to see if I can even bend my neck without having my head fall off. There’s trouble in there I guess.”

“Wo, I GUESS!” he exclaimed when he looked at the image of the vertebrae in question, that little pile of Pop Beads.

“Sucks to be me, huh?”

“What did you DO to this neck?”

I sighed. I thought about telling him I fell out of a tree like my cat did, leaving her with a limp like Walter Brennan as Stumpy the Cowhand but said nothing.

“Long story, huh?”

Later, when he had the pictures actually in front of him and let me peek at them real quick I tried to get him to SAY what HE thought looked so bad. Was it the bony growth that Osteoarthritis deposits, or was it the silly putty of the bulging discs squooshing out between the Tootsie-Roll segments of this uppermost part of my spinal column?

But darned if he would say. “We can’t say a WORD,” he told me, going all businesslike.

So I was disappointed but I'm still glad I’d made him so happy earlier. I had stood in the EXACT RIGHT WAY for the magic X-Ray eye to take a picture of Pop Beads One and Two, which can only be done by opening your mouth REALLY WIDE and holding your head at just the perfect angle because IF YOU DON'T, your lower teeth and jawbone or your occipital bone in back obscure the view by trying to get in the picture too.

But the shot he took of me? Perfect in every way. See?